5 thoughts on my first 5 months of having 5 kids
/// multitudinous mothering entity /// A mother who moves through the world and navigates spaces while attached to or in close, physical proximity of her children. Italicized words expanded on in the Glossary.
5 thoughts on my first 5 months of having 5 kids
by Mother Mother Binahkaye Joy
The inaugural experiment of the 5x5 process— 5 deep thoughts expanded on in writing, each for a duration of 5 minutes— was inspired by me celebrating my first 5 weeks of being a mommy of 5. Now as I sit with everything that is emerging in the light of these first 5 months since giving birth to Luminous Glory, I am coming back to this portal of discovery and adding more breath to the process. Instead of attempting to render a comprehensive thought in 5 minutes, I am gingerly working through different layers of the stories in pockets of time, sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes longer if the moment is soft enough.
This installation of the 5x5 series is paired with a photo essay featuring abstracted recreations of moving pictures that I archived from recordings of a morning dances ritual when I was 5 moons (months) into sitting with possibilities with Luminous Glory. Naked dancing is a core part of my creative practice, and the compositions of reflections + photos is very intentional. The juxtaposition of images of me before she was born, with the raw, unadorned texts that I am writing after her birth, generates new creative inquiries for me and seeds more story sharing practices. Here I am reaching for honesty and tenderness, so that my words match the beauty, intensity, and vulnerability of the imagery.
#1 This is all still so new.
Yes I know this. And I have to remind myself—and my family!— everyday that I JUST had a baby. That she just got here. That all the changes and new rhythms are a growth and expansion process for all of us. That one precious baby was born, and 7 whole lives were transformed in our immediate family bubble. And all of us need time to feel, breathe, and be—me and Luminous Glory especially! I dream of living in a world where this is known by all. Where families and extended families and communities are intelligent enough to slow down for the sacred birthing majesties. Where people who are close to the mama and baby have the sensitivity and the skills to be gentle, generous, and patient.
I am reminded of my foremothers who endured the brutalities of slavery and gave birth anyway. I believe they dreamed of my freedom, as they pushed on mightily and wearily from sunup to sundown. I believe they prayed for something better for their future iterations, and all their forward generations, even as they had no proof that better would ever come. So it is in this spirit that I do my work as a mother, and matter the moments of my labors as if they are holy and essential to the progression of humanity. Because they are.
#2 It’s lonely sometimes, most times.
I am learning how to to be in the community of myself, of my bones and muscles, of my hydration and nourishment rhythms, of my organs and blood and breath, of my disappointments and my dreams. I am flowing with the undulations and turbulences that come from being in community with the people I call family, with the blessed ones who live with me inside the more interior swirls of my life. I am grateful for the sisterships that water me, for the way our stories live on inside of each other, long after they’ve been told, and warm us through when we feel so far apart from one another. I am realizing there is even a sweet community with the neighbors whose names I didn’t really know until the world stopped a few years ago, but who do indeed witness me each day tending to the garden of my family, and offer many kindnesses our way.
My social circle has grown smaller and smaller the more children I’ve birthed. In another time, in another world, this would be a different story. But for now I am celebrating the blessings that are possible in this intimate reality. On days when it feels heavy I call it loneliness. I breathe through it. I remember how sad my heart was when I was surrounded by phenomenal people and performing on stages and facilitating creative workshops and making art in public spaces and all I really wanted was to be a mother. I breathe and be with the fullness of answered prayers. My children surround me. They jump, pull, twist, yank, collide, roll, bang, and bounce all over me. It is noisy and messy and my heart quakes daily, multiple times a day, from the journeys I take to feel it all. I am here, I know. Where I want to be.
#3 My birthing intelligence is vital to the collective knowing for the mothers of now and the mothers of the future.
Each birth brings you into a deeper communion with the majesties of being a creator. There are intelligences unearthed every time a mother opens herself up to the labors of pouring into the continuum of knowing that is mothering and birthing and creating. Birth happens differently in a body that has welcomed the journey many times. The brain and neural networks are restored to a primordial consciousness, one that is untainted by the limitations of rulers, scales, and clocks. And in that revelatory space where birth transforms us absolutely, we mothers who are birthing there, again and again, can know things that are unknowable to others. We can share those knowings with the ones whose bodies have not yet gone there. And this is a wondrous, and marvelous, and spectacular act of love, a generous devotion to life and the intricacies of becoming. Birthing is my work. It’s what I do.
#4 Love and fear can coexist, and sometimes they have to.
The story of how I got here is beautiful and ugly. There are parts that make me weep, on the inside, because there are not so many soft moments to shed my own tears anymore, as my children do most of the crying with their assorted hurts and heartaches every day. There are parts that bring me joy, that make me laugh, that make me feel amazing and courageous. There are parts that still make me cringe, that rattle my soul, that haunt me. The story is all here inside of me, no part independent of another. The love that birthed me as a mother of 5 this time is fully acquainted with all the fears that pushed me here too. We are one body of creation. I do not spend my days and nights dissecting the truth, cherishing what is lovely and discarding the rest. The scary parts are no less holy. Love is there always. I remember to breathe through everything that I’m feeling.
#5 I have to be the mother I am.
I am coded to create in these specific ways, and in this divine time. When my faith waivers, when the silence is loud, when it feels like I’m moving too slowly, or too differently, or too fiercely—I remember the immense dreams of the acorn, the twisting, widening arcs of the banyan, the firm hold of the mangrove roots to the sea floor. The trees teach me how to honor the diversity of the mothers. Every tree, every mother, is made to be the way she is. An oak can not become a maple. And a frankincense will never grow where a redwood sprouts. Different soil, different waters, different air. I am growing the way I need to grow. I am being in the ways of my fertility codes, evolving daily into the mother my body can sustain and hold. This is my journey. I am finding my way.
